This is really off topic, but the Income Tax Act is quite a complex piece of legislation at over 3,300 pages of (really boring) statute text.

Lots of corporations do things to minimize taxation, which is a legitimate business goal, but there aren't many corporations out there that deliberately lose money. That's kind of not the goal of being in business.

I think what you're thinking of is more like the taxation treatment of equity stakeholders. For instance, if you own a very small percentage of shares in Company X which you sell for a capital loss, you can use that capital loss to offset capital gains in the sale of Company Y's shares. That's a personal taxation thing and you're talking about corporation taxation.

Corporations can and do carry operating losses forward to offset future earnings, though.

Per, prime time pro sports is all about money. Huge money actually. That's why tickets are hundreds of dollars and jerseys or anything else with the team crest costs insane amounts.

I agree that a big part of why somebody buys a sports team is ego and for fun, but owners who buy and run a team for the passion of the game only end up like Arthur Griffiths; broke and without a team. Do you think Jerry Jones and George Steinbrenner bought their teams because they didn't want to make any money? Heck, the guys who run my local WHL team do it for a living and the money. Sure, it's fun too, and they all want to win, but there's a reason the beer ain't free.

Hey Per do you really think these owners are enjoying to quote you "To keep their names in the lime light and to earn goodwill" not a lot of that going right now, so IMO your surmising is way out in left field. On a talk radio today Team 1040. One of the hosts would not mention names but he said he had candidly been told from a team that is a good franchise and a moderate they believe the season is done .... and he is certainly not doing that to " To keep their names in the lime light and to earn goodwill"

Maybe in Sweden it's much more community minded but here it's business baby, or as Gerry Maguire would say "show me the money baby" and if it is all about good will etc etc how come the players aren't thinking along those lines too.

To me if they can get to 50% split in the income and have a 10 year deal so they can attract a National TV contract and bring in more and higher profile sponsors, put all not just some the teams on a good footing then the deal should be done. But hanging the lower end teams out to dry and looking for a short term CBA it's going no where. I can't remember the initial Cap figure for the last CBA but it was in the fifties and yet would have been in the seventies million range had the game gone on. Man that's a 40% increase. I don't know about you but I didn't see any 40% increase over that period.

Well as they say you can take the horse to water but you can't make it drink

I wish I had kept or could find the article that was in the Vancouver Sun way back in 1996 during the first lockout...It had a full page, old style paper, article and breakdown on the Boston Bruins and how they were losing money.

The way it was explained made a lot of sense on how a franchise in a billion dollar business can possibly be losing money, and it really highlighted the way the truth is not entirely the truth...

The way I remember it the Bruins lost money because the only revenue they received directly was from ticket sales and sundry league sources...Unfortunately, for Jacobs,Boston Gardens owned the rink boards and advertising spaces,Boston Gardens parking corp got the money for parking Concessions was also through a contractor. (Jacobs empire is built on catering but they don't give the bruins a break here and charge to make a profit on themselves...

The bottom line according to the article was that each part of the whole experience was divided up into smaller holdings and corporations. Each one having their own expenses to write off and each one turning a smaller profit.

The solution? A new building with more revenue streams. The set up stays the same except there are more companies involved now, a luxury box leasing company and a finance company because who's got the price of a house in cold cash lying around (Fred)

all of this owned by the Jacobs family or majority held shares or whatever method that allows them the maximum tax break allowed and presto chango all is well in Boston....

That says to me that its a shit load more complicated than simple math.

And that's my point, when someone says the owners need this or that cause they are losing money...the very word losing doesn't necessarily mean what it means when a a pair loses to three of a kind...

I just can't see how sympathy can lie with the devil... But that's just me I'm a twisted fUK

Last edited by ukcanuck on Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You know why that is. If one goes t!ts up the rest survives and maybe you missed this part of the article Jacobs put up the $160 million to build the place,TD Gardens. Not the PA or CAW but Jeremy Jacobs. Any one can do it if they want. He also uses it for a lot more events than just hockey, the Celtics play there and they host concerts and events. Why would that parking, advertisement, concessions go towards the Bruins ??

Address this will you, this hockey business is clearly a gold mine, money oozing from every edifice. Why doesn't the PA buy a franchise, it's like taking candy from a kid ....according to you any way, have at it, and as Per points out you'd be keep their names in the lime light and to earn goodwill for the PA .

The Premier League's 20 clubs collectively made a loss of £361m last year, after spending all of their record £2.3bn income. Of the clubs which were in the Premier League in 2010‑11, the year of most clubs' latest published accounts, eight made a profit, of £97.4m in total.

Of the other clubs, 11 made losses, totalling £458m. Manchester City, in the third year since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi's ruling family bought the club and began to pour in money to acquire a team capable of winning the Premier League, lost £197m, the greatest financial loss in the history of football.

If you look at the overall results, the “typical” European club spends 113% of its revenue. Player salaries and net transfer costs take up 71% of revenues; operating expenses (which include everything from directors’ salaries to youth football, sales and marketing, and much else) take up 39%, and net finance costs make up another 3%.

I agree, it's damn funny...only because the Euro economic crisis began with the fall of the sub prime mortgage crisis dominos in the good ol' U.S. of A holes...

Heck todays economic problems started way before the sub Prime Mortgage. It started with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagans adherance to the like of Milton Friedman and 'Keynesian Economics'. Try watching a couple of very good documentaries, "Commanding Heights" "Money Makers" and maybe "The Warning" R + T removed all legal hurdles and encouraged a totally open market. The sub prime market was a child of that system. Alan Greenspan aided and abetted and was eventually forced when question that the system that was the brain child of R+T and Greenspan was flawed**

** Greensapn admits he was wrong

Congressman Henry Waxman "My question is simple. Were you wrong?"

Greenspan "Partially ... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms ... I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. I had been going for 40 years with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well. The overall view I take of regulation is, I took an oath of office when I became Federal Reserve chairman. I'm here to uphold the laws of the land passed by Congress, not my own predilections."

And there we have a beautiful summary of the Eurozone economic issues.

Couple of problems with that analysis though...

1) Britain is not part of the Eurozone.

2) Revenue for the Premier League increased dramatically, not least because of a new UKL 1.5 billion TV deal. So the losses were not because of loss of revenue, but because the teams kept spending more and more on players:

In total, £1.5bn was spent on wages by the 20 clubs in 2010-11 (including Birmingham's £38m wage bill in 2009‑10). That accounted for 69% of the clubs' total income

I agree, it's damn funny...only because the Euro economic crisis began with the fall of the sub prime mortgage crisis dominos in the good ol' U.S. of A holes...

Heck todays economic problems started way before the sub Prime Mortgage. It started with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagans adherance to the like of Milton Friedman and 'Keynesian Economics'. Try watching a couple of very good documentaries, "Commanding Heights" "Money Makers" and maybe "The Warning" R + T removed all legal hurdles and encouraged a totally open market. The sub prime market was a child of that system. Alan Greenspan aided and abetted and was eventually forced when question that the system that was the brain child of R+T and Greenspan was flawed**

** Greensapn admits he was wrong

Congressman Henry Waxman "My question is simple. Were you wrong?"

Greenspan "Partially ... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms ... I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. I had been going for 40 years with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well. The overall view I take of regulation is, I took an oath of office when I became Federal Reserve chairman. I'm here to uphold the laws of the land passed by Congress, not my own predilections."

Greensapn was a dick that long after R + T started this road to doom followed through and drove the stake through the western worlds economic system.

The documentaries I recommended should be shown to every university economics major and any one that wants to review what the heck has happened to the Capatilist system those 3 high jacked the world

I believe both R + T were influenced early by Ayn Rand and her "free market" philosophy and this was w a y before sub prime mortages

So what you are saying is that the NDP and socialists have been right all along and that there needs to be checks and balances to control the economy? ....The rich cannot be trusted to look after anyone else's interests?

Seems to me that the banking crises and the whole bubble model is exactly the example that proves the left has a point.

All this talk about management looking after their workforce if just left alone is the same mistake Greenspan made.

2) Revenue for the Premier League increased dramatically, not least because of a new UKL 1.5 billion TV deal. So the losses were not because of loss of revenue, but because the teams kept spending more and more on players:

In total, £1.5bn was spent on wages by the 20 clubs in 2010-11 (including Birmingham's £38m wage bill in 2009‑10). That accounted for 69% of the clubs' total income

And Bettman won't even give the players 50%!

I think Bettman and the owners wants a league which has the basic goal that teams aren't haemorrhaging money like it sounds like those Premier League teams are.

A business is a profession, calling, trade, manufacture or undertaking of any kind whatever and an adventure in the concern in the nature of trade (excludes employment). Maybe there are local club teams that are not for profit organizations, but generally, big league teams have a significant profit motive (i.e. it's about the money baby).

I don't know much about European soccer leagues, but didn't Manchester United just file a IPO this past year on the NYSE? Are you saying that's not a business?

ukcanuck wrote:So what you are saying is that the NDP and socialists have been right all along and that there needs to be checks and balances to control the economy? ....The rich cannot be trusted to look after anyone else's interests?

Seems to me that the banking crises and the whole bubble model is exactly the example that proves the left has a point.

All this talk about management looking after their workforce if just left alone is the same mistake Greenspan made.

Btw the link seems to not work ...

Christ sake no repeat no repeat no. What I said was the Capatilist system worked until they took the diversion created by Thatcherism and Reagan economics. What they did was remove all control which left the Capatilist system open to unfettered corruption personal greed as the norm. A fine example was the Sub Prime Motgage. Every one almost from the tellar down tried to take a slice and threw all control and good sense out the window. But the foundation was explained by Ayn Rand, fundamentally every one works for their own benefit and last home is a rotter.

Remember Banking was ONCE upon a time a self regulating domain run by people with moral and ethics. It's not only banking that's gone astray. Today if you can prove it on paper ( academically ) it must be OK, the Hell with ethics and that's in all walks of life. However it's been amplified in the financial sector because of people like Greenspan. There's a marvelous part in "The Warning" where Brooksley Born is asked to you like crooks and she answers NO ! Greensapn retorts I do because they're doing every thing they can to succeed !!

Fred your supporting documentaries may be worth watching, however, your assertion that Reagan & Thatcher were followers of Keynesian economics is wrong. Keynes advocated economic policy should be formulated based on consumer demand. Reaganomics was "supply side" based. Both Reagan & Thatcher sought to reduce/limit government spending, control the money supply, reduce income /capital gains taxes and reduce regulation of business. In Maggie's case she privatized government owned businesses and broke the crippling effect of unions in Britain.

The Mortgage fiasco with no money down and no payments was a Clinton era policy. It was pushed by the Democrats as a way to get minority votes. GW Bush in his first term tried to put the clamps on this but the Dems prevailed. Some mortgage lenders forgot/ignored basic credit principles ( debt servicing ability) and made loans based on the value of the property they were mortgaging and and false inflationary vales they were creating. Many of these mortgage brokers bundled these "investments" and resold them to other lenders. For a time everyone's balance sheet looked great until the mortgagees began to default. Soon the actual value of the property is less than the loan on the books. Major problem for bankers. Bankers are in the "money" business not the real estate business. When they cross over we are all in big trouble. I experienced this in 1982 when interest rates went to 20% and people whose mortgages were up for renewal found they could not service the mortgage. Huge problem until the feds who controlled interest rates had to step in and assist by effectively covering the differential for any mortgage over 12%. It was not a fun time to be in banking or renewing a mortgage.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt "